Hosea 12:11

[Is there] iniquity [in] Gilead?.... Idolatry there? strange that there should be, seeing it was a city of the priests; a city of refuge; or there is none there, say the priests, who pretended they

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. Is there iniquity in Gilead?

Is there iniquity in Gilead? in this concise interrogatory the prophet warns the refractory, ungodly Israelites by an example of God’ s wrath on them. About A.M. 326.1, at Ahaz’ s request and charges, Tiglath-pileser came up against Israel, and took Gilead among other towns, leading the inhabitants captives, ; now some sixteen or seventeen years after doth our prophet mind the sinful and secure Ephraimites what they must expect, and doth it in this pungent question, Is there iniquity in Gilead? i.e. is there only? or is there more? much like that of Christ’ s, , Suppose ye them greater sinners? Be it so, captive Gilead was all iniquity, and Gilgal is no better. They that come up to Gilgal to sacrifice are idolaters, they sin against God in offering to them, and against their own welfare in trusting to them, both ways they appear to be vanity; whilst they multiply these altars and sacrifices, they multiply their sins, God’ s displeasure is increased, and the danger more near and dreadful. Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields: idolatrous Israel, thou aboundest in altars; but if they are for number like heaps of stones, gathered out of ploughed land and laid in furrows, they are as common too, i.e. as far from sacred, as far from commending any offering to God, or stoning his displeasure. And canst thou, Ephraim, hope to escape, whose sins exceed the sins of captive Gilead? wilt thou never be wise, never warned, never repent?

Hosea 12:11 [Is there] iniquity [in] Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars [are] as heaps in the furrows of the fields.Ver. 11. Is there iniquity in Gilead] What, in Gilead, a city of priests? yea, Gilead is a city of those that work iniquity, a very Poneropolis, a place of naughty packs, Hosea 4:15. Now there is not a worse creature on earth than a wicked priest, nor a worse place than a wicked Gilead. The Hebrew hath it thus, Is Gilead iniquity? Or as Luther, Drusius, and others, Surely it is so ( àí certe, vere, profecto). Confer Micah 1:5. Gregory Nazianzen reports of Athens, that it was the plaguiest place in the world for superstition. Our universities were so in times of Popery, and began to be so again a few years since. Revera Gilead est iniquitas, profecto vanitas sunt, they were grown so incorrigibly flagitious that they seemed to be, as it were, transformed into sin’ s image. Some render the text thus: "Is there iniquity in Gilead? Are they only vanity in Gilgal? They sacrificed bullocks," and set this sense upon it. What? think you the men of Gilead, those beyond the river of Jordan, whom Tiglathpileser spoiled and led captives, that they only were guilty of idolatry, and you not, because you remain at home, untouched of the Assyrian? Nay, saith he, the very entrance into the country, Gilgal itself, so aboundeth with idolatry, that it is not to be doubted but in the rest of the parts of the kingdom their altars are as thick as furrows in the field, that is to say, innumerable. Some think this last clause, "their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field" (or of my fields, whereof I am chief Lord, and wherein he should have served me, and not idols), hath reference to some superstitious way of theirs, of seeking God by erecting altars in the furrows, for the fructifying of their fields: the heathen did so to their Dii Terminales; boundary gods, and the Papists still do so in their solemn processions, erecting crosses and crucifixes in the bounds of their fields, and thereby thinking to get a blessing on their corn and pastures. Tarnovius noteth here, that God in the Old Testament would therefore have but one altar whereon to offer sacrifice, and that to be at Jerusalem only; to teach them that Christ, the anti-type of all their sacrifices, should once be offered up upon the altar of his cross, a propitiation for their sins, Hebrews 9:1-28; Hebrews 10:1-39. This altar he also appointed to be in the temple, that the sacrificers might believe the gracious presence of God with them, and might worship him in spirit and in truth.

(11) Translate, If Gilead be worthless, surely they have become nought. In Gilgal they sacrificed bullocks; their altars also are like heaps upon the field’s furrows, referring to a past event, the desolating invasion of Gilead by Tiglath-pileser, in 734 B.C. To this military expedition we have undoubted references in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser II. But unfortunately they are in a very mutilated condition. From one passage we learn:—“The city Gil [ead] and [A] bel [Maacha] which is on this side the land Beth Omri (Samaria) the distant . . . I joined in its whole extent to the territory of Assyria.” The biblical passage, 2 Kings 15:29, supplements this account by stating that Napntali and Galilee also fell victims to the victorious arms of the invader. From the verse before us we infer that Gilgal, on the western bank of the Jordan near Jericho (see Note on 4:15), likewise felt the heavy hand of the conqueror, or perhaps the inhabitants fled in panic and the local shrines became deserted ruins. From this time forth we hear no more of Gilgal as a religious centre. Nowack, however, follows Ewald in regarding the passage as prophetic of a coming calamity. (See Introduction.) In the word for “heaps” (gallîm) there is a play on the name Gilgal.

Verse 11. Iniquity in Gilead] Gilgal and Gilead are equally iniquitous, and equally idolatrous. Gilead, which was beyond Jordan, had already been brought under subjection by Tiglath-Pileser. Gilgal, which was on this side Jordan, shall share the same fate; because it is now as idolatrous as the other. Their altars are as heaps] They occur everywhere. The whole land is given to idolatry.

11. The ruin of two famous centres of idolatry, representing together the entire northern kingdom. Is there iniquity, &c.] More probably, If Gilead is (given to) idolatry, mere vanity shall they (the Gileadites) become, i.e. apostacy from Him who is the only source of life leads to sure destruction; ‘they that make the idols become like unto them.’ The town of Gilead has already been singled out for reprobation in Hosea 6:8-9. For the historical fulfilment of the prophecy, see 2 Kings 15:29—‘in the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and took … Gilead and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria’ (compare Tiglath-Pileser’s own account of his expedition against Philistia in b.c. 734; G. Smith, Eponym Canon, p. 123, Schrader, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, on 2 Kings 15:29). they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal] Or, as it might well be stated in the margin, ‘in Heap-town’ (see next note). They affront Jehovah by sacrificing at idolatrous shrines, especially at Gilgal (see on Hosea 4:15). So the Targum. Others, by a slight emendation, ‘they sacrifice to the bullocks in Gilgal’, i.e. to the steer-gods; but there is no parallel for such a use of the word ‘bullocks.’ St Jerome’s ‘bobus immolantes’ is an ungrammatical rendering of our present text (see his note). yea, their altars are as heaps, &c.] Rather, so then their altars shall he as stone-heaps, i.e. like heaps of stones which a careful husbandman has gathered out of his ploughed field (comp. Micah 1:6). The idiom employed (lit., ‘also their altars’ &c.) indicates the correspondence between cause and effect, a sin and its retribution (comp. Isaiah 66:3 b, 4a); the tense is the prophetic perfect. There is a paronomasia in Gilgal (as if ‘Heap-town’, comp. Joshua 4:20), and gallim (‘heaps’); the very name of Gilgal seems to suggest its impending fate. Some think the name ‘Gilead’ is also included in the paronomasia, but in spite of the apparent support of Gen 31:47-48, this is not the more natural view of Hosea’s language. At most, there is a play upon the similarity of sound in Gilead and Gilgal; not upon any supposed similarity of meaning.

Is there iniquity in Gilead? - The prophet asks the question, in order to answer it the more peremptorily. He raises the doubt, in order to crush it the more impressively.

10, 11. In manifold ways Jehovah sought to warn the people. By the prophets — This is better than R.V. “unto” (compare Amos 2:11; Jeremiah 7:25).